In its initial year, AORTA managed to get eight families on board to donate organs of their departed ones. Out of these, three were complicated medico legal cases involving, at times, three separate police forces and distances of several thousand kilometres.

In September, the organs of a soldier, Havildar Sawai Singh, who died in a hit-and-run accident in Delhi, changed the lives of three people. One kidney was transplanted into the 38-year-old wife of a serving Sergeant from Air Force with end stage kidney disease. Another was handed over to AIIMS, where it was transplanted into a 58-year-old patient with chronic kidney failure. Then his liver saved the life of a brother soldier who was suffering from liver cirrhosis.

A month earlier, organs taken from the wife of an Army soldier were transplanted to two persons — a serving soldier with terminal cirrhosis due to Hepatitis B and a 12-year-old daughter of a soldier suffering from end stage kidney disease.

How AORTA approaches organ donation is a case study that civil authorities and the Health Ministry can draw lessons from. A live database, a long list of donors, a liaison cell dealing with the police and civil authorities, trained counsellors at hospitals and an active, dedicated team of experts have made AORTA a success story.

In fact, how it differs from similar organisations is the manner in which the sensitive issue has been tackled. A set of trained doctors — Patient Aid and Liaison (PAL) officers — stationed at hospitals keep a track of possible donors and counsels families on organ donation. In medico legal cases, the organ transplant team reach out to all parties concerned to speed up the process.

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